Buzz Aldrin talks Mars with O.C. kids

Buzz Aldrin, left, Apollo astronaut who was the second man to walk on the moon, answers questions from Orange County elementary, middle and high school students at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum on Tuesday evening.LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

YORBA LINDA – The second man to walk on the moon strode into the Nixon library on Tuesday evening, and the room full of schoolchildren was ready.

Buzz Aldrin, 83, was there to deliver a talk on his latest book, "Mission to Mars," outlining his ideas on how to put humans on the red planet. Nearly 800 people attended the event.

But first, he faced a battery of questions from about 35 Orange County youngsters, most of them in elementary or middle school.

The students had been selected by their teachers based on questions they submitted for Aldrin, who followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface July 20, 1969, in one of the space program's most iconic moments.

The first question came from David Ponsen, 11, of Malcom Elementary school in Laguna Niguel.

"What inspired you to be an astronaut?" he asked.

Aldrin recounted his experience at West Point and his time as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, a flier during the Cold War and eventually his entry into the space program.

"You don't always go the straight, direct way," he said. "Sometimes, you kind of cut around the end."

He told the group he didn't favor a repeat of the moon-landing program.

"We really don't need to go back to the moon with our astronauts now, and maybe compete with the Chinese," he said. "That's a no-win situation."

Instead, he advocates practicing building bases – first in Hawaii, then on the moon, then on the surface of Mars.

An organizer asked the children if they wanted to go to Mars, and one of them asked Aldrin if, as a child, he ever thought he would go to the moon.

"That was pure fantasy," he said. "But it's not fantasy when he asked if you wanted to go to Mars anymore, is it? No, because we're thinking ahead. We're planning to be able to do things like that. And I hope we do, instead of repeating what we did 40 years ago, and sending astronauts back to the moon again."

One boy asked how Aldrin was chosen to go the moon.

"The best answer for that is being in the right place at the right time," Aldrin said. "And then when I wasn't, I kind of manipulated things."

But the questioner who seemed to steal the show was Catherine Le, 11, a fifth-grader from Palmyra Elementary in Orange.

"Do you personally believe that there are extraterrestrials existing on other planets or on this Earth?"

Buzz Aldrin, left, Apollo astronaut who was the second man to walk on the moon, answers questions from Orange County elementary, middle and high school students at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum on Tuesday evening. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Catherine Le, 11, left, of Palmyra Elementary in Orange asks Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, right, if he thinks there is extraterrestrial life during a question and answer session with Orange County students at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda. Aldrin was giving a lecture and having a book signing for his book, "Mission to Mar" at the library. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Author and astronaut Buzz Aldrin, center, leads Orange County students to walk through the boot prints he made in concrete at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda in 1999 for the 30th Anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Buzz Aldrin, left center, the Apollo astronaut who was the second man to walk on the moon, answers questions from Orange County elementary, middle and high school students at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum on Tuesday evening. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo astronaut who was the second man to walk on the moon, answers questions from Orange County elementary, middle and high school students at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum on Tuesday evening. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A student reads Buzz Aldrin's book, "Mission to Mars" as he waits for the astronaut to make an appearance at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. LEONARD ORTIZ, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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